May Girl
How popular is May?
#1,229 girl name in 2025
183 baby girls were named May in the US in 2025, making it the 1229th most popular girl name.
May popularity over time
Boys Girls
| Rank in 2025 | #1,229 for girls (▲ 129 from 2024) |
|---|---|
| Babies in 2025 | 183 girls |
| 10-year trend | Rising (+41% babies vs 2015) |
| Earlier ranks | #1,643 in 2015, #1,704 in 2020 |
| Peak year | 1919 (981 girls) |
| Highest rank | #57 in 1880 (2 years at that rank) |
| First recorded | 1880 |
| Boys vs girls (last 10 years) | 0% boys, 100% girls |
| Chance a classmate shares it | 0.1% in a class of 25 kids born in 2025 |
May counting every spelling
Social Security counts each spelling as its own name. Adding together the spellings that sound alike, the May family of names ranked #914 for girls in 2025 (#988 the year before), with 238 babies in all.
| Spelling | Girls in 2025 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| May | 183 | 77% |
| Mai | 55 | 23% |
Spellings are grouped by how they sound, using our own rules, so a few groupings may not match how your family says the name.
Where May is most popular
Babies named May per 1,000 girls born in each state, 2021 to 2025. Darker means more common.
- Utah: 0.3 per 1,000 (24 girls)
- Washington: 0.2 per 1,000 (28 girls)
- Colorado: 0.2 per 1,000 (21 girls)
- California: 0.1 per 1,000 (102 girls)
- Illinois: 0.1 per 1,000 (27 girls)
May by decade
| Decade | Baby girls | Best rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 5,881 | #57 |
| 1890s | 6,880 | #65 |
| 1900s | 5,546 | #91 |
| 1910s | 8,096 | #138 |
| 1920s | 8,164 | #204 |
| 1930s | 3,743 | #270 |
| 1940s | 2,319 | #407 |
| 1950s | 1,724 | #576 |
| 1960s | 1,111 | #885 |
| 1970s | 911 | #1,066 |
| 1980s | 1,223 | #962 |
| 1990s | 815 | #1,589 |
| 2000s | 884 | #1,896 |
| 2010s | 1,199 | #1,569 |
| 2020s | 904 | #1,229 |
Girl names about as popular as May
Questions
- Is May a boy or girl name?
- May is mostly a girl name. Over the last 10 years, 100% of babies named May were girls.
- How popular is the name May?
- 183 baby girls were named May in the US in 2025, making it the 1229th most popular girl name.
- When was May most popular?
- May peaked in 1919, when 981 girls were given the name. Its highest rank was #57, held for 2 years starting in 1880.
- How many people are named May?
- 50,099 babies have been named May in the US since 1880. We estimate about 11,126 of them are alive in 2026, with a median age of 53.
- Where is May most popular?
- From 2021 to 2025, May was most common in Utah, at 0.3 of every 1,000 girls born there.
Source: Social Security Administration baby name data, 1880 to 2025 (names given to at least 5 babies of a sex in a year). Living-people and median-age figures are our estimates using US life tables. How we calculate.